Yandle Nomination
Floor Speech
Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I am pleased the Senate is now considering appropriations bills that fund important segments of our Federal Government. Those include the agencies responsible for scientific research, justice and nutrition programs, as well as the Departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development.
It has been some time since we have been able to fund the operations of the government through regular order, so it is encouraging that leaders on both sides of the aisle have been able to work together now to pursue that goal.
As we are here today considering these bills, I think it is helpful to remember where we were at this time last year. We were unable to start a budget conference. There was a government shutdown looming just a few months ahead, and businesses and families across the country had absolutely no certainty about whether their government could even keep the lights on.
Today we have more certainty thanks to the 2-year budget agreement, and building on the bipartisan work we all did to reach that agreement, the members of our committee, Senator Collins and I, have been able to put together a transportation and housing bill that makes responsible investments in infrastructure and community development and helps protect the most vulnerable among us.
Less than 2 weeks ago the Appropriations Committee approved the transportation and housing bill by a vote of 29 to 1--an extremely strong show of bipartisan support. This bill received such remarkable support because it helps families and communities, it gets workers back on the job, and it lays down a strong foundation for long-term and broad-based economic growth. It does this in a manner that is fiscally responsible, with growth of just a little more than 1 percent over the fiscal year 2014 level when looking at the program funding levels and factoring in FHA receipts, which do vary from year to year. After adjusting for inflation, the funding in this bill is actually 2.5 percent less than what it was in fiscal year 2008, as a result of the spending cuts we have now applied to discretionary appropriations.
This bill is timely. It makes critical, targeted investments to address concerns that have developed over the past year. In light of the dramatic growth in domestic energy production, it includes new resources to strengthen oversight of energy shipments by rail to keep our communities safe, including funding for additional rail safety and hazardous materials inspectors, training for first responders, more track inspections, research into the volatility of crude oil, and requirements for stronger tank car designs.
This bill includes $10 million to improve vehicle safety defects analysis and investigation, to help ensure we do not see a repeat of the Department of Transportation's failure to detect unsafe parts in General Motors and other manufacturers' vehicles.
This bill provides an additional 10,000 vouchers to move us closer to finally eliminating homelessness among our Nation's veterans. Due to these investments, we have been able to reduce the number of homeless vets on our Nation's streets by 24 percent since 2010. We are well on our way to eliminating it altogether.
Our bill includes direction to help communities implement the Violence Against Women Act in Federal housing programs as well as resources to improve coordination between housing programs and domestic violence survivors services. It makes it possible for HUD to support youth aging out of foster care, giving them more time to find stability and save money, thereby helping to reduce the elevated risk of homelessness facing those vulnerable young people.
This bill invests in our communities. It provides $3 billion for community development grants to State and local governments to help communities fund projects that meet their unique needs and support efforts to create jobs and $950 million for the HOME Program to help create affordable housing.
It ensures the FAA has sufficient funding to continue rebuilding its workforce after the disruptive effects of last year's sequestration. It fully funds the FAA's airport grants and research programs as well as the contract towers and Essential Air Service Program that so many of our rural communities depend on.
It includes sufficient funding for HUD's house and homeless assistance program, to preserve this vital piece of the Nation's safety net. More than half of the 5.4 million very low-income households that depend upon the housing assistance provided in this bill include someone elderly, disabled, or both. Without these programs, many of these individuals would be homeless.
The bill includes $90 million for Choice Neighborhoods. That is a program that helps tear down and rebuild distressed public housing as well as language making it possible for more local authorities to access private capital through the Rental Assistance Demonstration to renovate our aging housing stock. Notably, it includes reforms to make the programs in this bill more accountable and more effective. These include provisions to make it easier for public housing authorities to manage their capital and operations needs as well as resources for HUD to use the lessons it has learned since Hurricane Katrina to develop templates that communities can quickly implement to speed recovery effectively following a disaster.
The bill streamlines environmental reviews for Native American housing. It works to ensure accountability for property owners who do not maintain the quality of their HUD assisted housing. It increases accountability in the CDBG Program.
That is our bill. We do make tough choices. To fund increases for inflation and other uncontrollable costs, we made the very difficult choice of trimming funding for programs that Members care about, including the TIGER and HOME Program. In short, this bill is a good bill.
I note that most of the transportation funding, a total of just over $50 billion, comes from our highway trust fund. As we all know, right now, the highway trust fund is headed toward a crisis. The Department of Transportation expects the balances in this fund to reach critical levels later this summer. To deal with this uncertainty, States now are already bracing for the worst-case scenario. Some States such as Arkansas have already put their projects on hold. This crisis could also hurt workers in the construction industry who depend on jobs to repair our roads and bridges.
If Congress does not act, a shortfall in the highway trust fund will put at risk the funding we have included here in our THUD bill. We need immediate action to solve that crisis well before October when the new fiscal year starts. We need to work together to avoid that unnecessary and preventable crisis. In the meantime, I am glad we are turning to the transportation and housing bill and getting the work of the Appropriations Committee done.
Together with the Senator from Maine, Susan Collins, I encourage Members to bring their amendments to the floor and to work with us to make it even better. This bill enjoys broad bipartisan support, because it takes a practical approach to addressing the real needs we find in the transportation and housing sectors.
The investments it makes would improve safety, increase efficiency, and help our communities, and lay down a strong foundation for long-term and broad-based economic growth and help position our country and our economy to compete in winning the 21st century global economy. I urge our colleagues to support our bipartisan bill. I hope we can move rapidly to final passage.
Before I yield, I do want to thank Chairman Mikulski for her support and leadership. As the former chair of the VA HUD subcommittee, she appreciates the importance of the investments in our bill. This bill includes priorities of Members on both sides of the aisle, reflecting the Appropriations Committee's bipartisan tradition.
I thank our entire committee for their work. I especially want to take a moment to express my thanks to my ranking member Senator Collins and her staff for all of their hard work and cooperation throughout this process. I am proud that together we have written a bill that works for families and communities. Investing in families and communities and long-term economic growth should not be a partisan issue. I think the bipartisan work that went into this bill and the strong support it received in committee proves it does not have to be.
I yield the floor.
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